December 18, 2012 – Global Day of Action: WE MIGRATE TO LIVE, NO MORE DEATHS, NO MORE MISSING PEOPLE!

Posted by clandestina on 21 August 2012

The Global Day of Action for the Rights of Migrants, Refugees and Displaced people on December 18, 2011 was the first step towards the setting-up of a global movement of migrants and of all people who support them. More than 20 countries carried out various activities. What we managed to do was to transform that day in a collective event in which all ideas that are being executed every day by different organizations and networks that defend migrants’ rights came together.

This year we would like to experience it one again, together with those who were with us in 2011 and also with those who crossed our paths during the last year. We invite all organizations and networks to become promoters of the Global Day of Action. Below you can find the call WE MIGRATE TO LIVE, NO MORE DEATHS, NO MORE MISSING PEOPLE which throws this years’ Global Action Day.

THE CALL

To migrate is a decision we take to improve our lives, to escape misery or war, in search of a better future for us and our families.

Crossing borders, however, by land or sea, today is a synonym of death. All the migration paths around the world are marked by graves. Every year thousands disappear on these paths leaving behind their families in anguish and uncertainty.

The same happens on the Mexico – United State border, as it does on the Sahara, Ceuta and Melilla in Spain, in China, the Mediterranean Sea, on the borders that divide Eastern Europe with Western Europe, or the borders that divide many countries in America. Geographical places that are far from each other, share the crude reality of this tragedy.

The United State has built a wall that extends more than one thousand kilometers, forcing migrants that are not allowed to enter the country legally to find paths that are extremely difficult to travel on, resulting in thousands of deaths yearly. However, many miles before immigrants coming from Central America reach this wall of shame, thousands of men and women disappear along the road travelled by an old train known with the sinister name of “The Beast”. According to international human rights organizations and organizations in Mexico 60,000 people have disappear in transit in Mexico since the government begun the “war against organized crime” in that country in 2006. It is said that Mexico is becoming a “cemetery for migrants.”

On the Mediterranean Sea, the natural border between Europe and Maghreb, in the old times an area for the encounter of different people, today is an open cemetery. The shipwreck of the “carts of the sea” has become a matter of fact since they happen even in sight of the NATO patrols. During the last 20 years more than 20,000 have perished on this sea, 2,000 alone died in 2011, and many more are missing.

These policies of death developed by the most wealth countries, which include strategies for containing, deporting and closing borders, has been transformed in a ferocious hunting exercise against people who migrate. Many international organizations and networks have denounced this horrible reality for many years. The extent and seriousness of this human tragedy demand today that we unite our efforts.

There is an urgent need to show the world the global dimension of the massacre that is being carried out on the borders of the world. It is urgent that people, the workers of the world, both in the countries of origin and the countries of destination, raise their voices united against this tragedy.

It is for this reason that we propose that on December 18, 2012 all the initiatives and campaigns around the world converge in common action to defend all aspects of the rights of migrants, refugees and displaced people.

Last year, on a similar date, many networks and organizations united their efforts to carry out the first global day of action against racism and for the rights of displaced people. We are proposing that his year on December 18, 2012 we create again a space of unity to amplify the voices of those who defend the concept that MIGRATING SHOULD BE TO LIVE. NO MORE DEATHS. NO MORE MISSING PEOPLE!

This will be an event to denounce the policies and structures created by states to persecute immigrants. These states share the main responsibility for this tragedy. This will be an event to affirm the right to migrate, the right to remain in our countries and not to be displaced, the right of circulate freely. This will be an event where we will remember the men and women who have died in the migration process, when they ironically took this decision to survive in hopes of finding a better world for them and their families. This will be an event to demand reports by the governments around the world on the amount of people who have died or have been killed on their borders. This day we will make our voices heard demanding to know where our loved ones died. For each missing migrant in transit there will always be a desperate mother, father, sister, friend or spouse who continue to look for them.